f reedom of a ction 155countless civilians who perished in 1944–1945 in battles, bombing raids,
and gas chambers.
Unconditional Surrender and Beyond
From the moment the fi rst Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, it was
clear that the United States would settle for nothing less than the
complete defeat of its enemies and the utter destruction of their capacity
to ever threaten peace again. Roosevelt would off er no Fourteen Points
with a promise of generous terms; there would be no armistice while
either Germany or Japan still had strong armies in the fi eld that might
give rise to another “stab in the back” myth. He spoke to his advisors
early in the war of how the German people had been “Prussianized,”
drawn into a militarized culture that would need to be uprooted thor-
oughly. At this point, when Nazi plans for extermination camps were
just beginning to move from drawing board to reality, he still had only
a limited grasp of the nature of the Hitler’s regime. But he understood
that Germany would need to be beaten in a way that would open the
door for a thorough remaking of German popular attitudes. Similarly,
the political infl uence of the military in Japan would have to be elimi-
nated once and for all, while Japan would have to be evicted from all its
holdings in Asia, especially China.
For some fi fteen months after Pearl Harbor, though, America’s basic
war aims remained implicit. Not until the president met Churchill in
Casablanca in February 1943 did Roosevelt declare publicly that the
Allies would insist upon the unconditional surrender of Germany and
Japan. (Th e prime minister later claimed that he was surprised by the
announcement, which may have been true, but he and the president
had discussed the policy in advance and agreed upon it.) Stalin agreed
with the call for the total defeat of Germany; the Soviet Union would
not enter the war against Japan until its fi nal days.
“Unconditional surrender” stirred controversy during the war and
later. German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels exploited the
Allies’ goal to stimulate German determination. After the war, some
German generals claimed it left them no alternative but to stand behind
Hitler to the end. Even among American military commanders, there
were a number who worried that the demand for the enemy to lay